bookish1313's review
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
Good and highly informative read. I was surprised the end chapter really helped explain the beginnings of Zionism.
skitch41's review
challenging
dark
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.5
The recent surge of anti-semitism in Europe and America has been heart breaking, especially when that anti-semitism led to violence at a Pittsburgh synagogue by a white supremacist terrorist in 2018. Sadly, Jewish history is fraught with such tragedies, even before you get to the Holocaust under the Nazis. But Jewish history is far more than these senseless tragedies. In this second volume to his planned trilogy, historian Simon Schama traces the history of the Jewish people from the Renaissance to the dawn of the 20th century, laying out in dense detail their many triumphs and tragedies and their persistence in the face of unbelievable hardships.
For my full review, check out my book blog here.
For my full review, check out my book blog here.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Antisemitism and Religious bigotry
Moderate: Xenophobia
Minor: Violence
julis's review
challenging
informative
slow-paced
4.0
I still have a problem with his focus. Easily the first 2/3 of the book is just on Sephardi Jews and while this is deeply fascinating and hugely important for understanding the shape of our world today, it’s um…
The chapters on Ashkenazi Jews start in 1750. Like, what? There are 3 different mentions of something going down in Poland in the 1600s but he never gave details.
This part wasn’t as traumatic as the first–possibly because he also kept downplaying how bad it was in Russia? Who knows.
Will reserve judgment for book 3.
daisyb's review
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
I listened to the audiobook of this, read by Schama himself, the result being a very nice tempering of all dryness and long-windedness. I learnt a fair bit, and wasn't as weighed down by the scope of it all as I would have been had I ploughed through a paper copy.
The flow of the work, how the different stories interlink and overlap, is probably its best feature – avoiding dull linearity the better to tie history together thematically. I suppose that's in the title though! It is indeed the story of the jews, and all the more engaging for this mode of telling.
While Schama's account isn't entirely Eurocentric or male dominated, the stories that do exist beyond Europe and that are about women are so interesting that I can't help but wish there were more of them! All in all, it's a beautiful history that is brought to life by its focus on individual people across the centuries.
The flow of the work, how the different stories interlink and overlap, is probably its best feature – avoiding dull linearity the better to tie history together thematically. I suppose that's in the title though! It is indeed the story of the jews, and all the more engaging for this mode of telling.
While Schama's account isn't entirely Eurocentric or male dominated, the stories that do exist beyond Europe and that are about women are so interesting that I can't help but wish there were more of them! All in all, it's a beautiful history that is brought to life by its focus on individual people across the centuries.
halfmanhalfbook's review
3.0
This second volume of Simon Schama's history of the Jewish people begins in the ghettos of Venice where the Jews of the Iberian peninsula had ended up after being expelled. Those that had not escaped were forced to convert and even then were still persecuted. This search for safety and somewhere to live where they could carry on with their lives in peace had been a pressing concern; and as this book explains in some detail, the theme of moving, settling, suffering and moving again, would keep repeating for the next few hundred years.
The story that Schama tells is as epic in scope as it is global. We travel with him all around Europe, into the cold of Russia, across the Atlantic to the New World of America and venture into the privileged upper-class world of the English aristocracy. He tells of those that lost children as they were conscripted into the army, those that found peace before the winds of change in Europe blew through once again, those that suffered for their faith and those that fought back. Even though this is a sweeping history of a people, he concentrates on individuals and specific events to explain the wider history the Jews.
This is a huge book, at around 800 odd pages long and Schama goes into huge amounts of detail as he tells his stories of the Jewish people. Some of it is fascinating, but there were times when I felt like I was wading through it as he expanded on the minutia as the events unfolded. It is one that I feel some sort of accomplishment having read it now.
The story that Schama tells is as epic in scope as it is global. We travel with him all around Europe, into the cold of Russia, across the Atlantic to the New World of America and venture into the privileged upper-class world of the English aristocracy. He tells of those that lost children as they were conscripted into the army, those that found peace before the winds of change in Europe blew through once again, those that suffered for their faith and those that fought back. Even though this is a sweeping history of a people, he concentrates on individuals and specific events to explain the wider history the Jews.
This is a huge book, at around 800 odd pages long and Schama goes into huge amounts of detail as he tells his stories of the Jewish people. Some of it is fascinating, but there were times when I felt like I was wading through it as he expanded on the minutia as the events unfolded. It is one that I feel some sort of accomplishment having read it now.
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